


Ontology, or, The Many Adventures of Reaper and Hoot

by sentientcitizen



Category: Black Hawk Down (2001), Doom (2005)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Crossover, Dysfunctional Family, M/M, Military, not actually very good at writing sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-15
Updated: 2011-05-15
Packaged: 2017-10-23 02:17:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sentientcitizen/pseuds/sentientcitizen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reaper doesn’t have the words to explain why he’s here - but Hoot understands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ontology, or, The Many Adventures of Reaper and Hoot

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=griffndor)[**griffndor**](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=griffndor) , who won it in [](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=helpbrazil2011)[**helpbrazil2011**](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=helpbrazil2011). I had to learn two fandoms from scratch to write this! *laughs* Thanks as always to [](http://sophia-sol.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**sophia_sol**](http://sophia-sol.dreamwidth.org/) , for betaing, and as usual I'm making no money from this.

John Grimm is cool. John Grimm has a tragic past and a square jaw and a well honed who-gives-a-fuck attitude and he’s _cool_ , dammit, from the tip of his combat boots all the way up to his brand new regulation haircut. John Grimm’s coolness is a well-tested law of the universe, on par with gravity or thermodynamics or ark oscillations.

So how the hell is it that Hoot, with his mile-wide sarcastic streak and his rumpled clothes, makes John feel like a gawky science nerd again, pocket protector and all?

He really had owned a pocket protector, back in the day. John Grimm wasn’t _born_ cool, after all. He started life as a nerd, born of nerds and raised among nerds. The flimsy bit of plastic had been a gift, one each for Sam and him on their fifth birthdays, and they’d worn them for months because their parents didn’t have the heart to tell two earnest gap-toothed kids that their new prized possessions were meant as a joke. He’s pretty sure his is in a UAC storage locker somewhere. He hasn’t seen it for over a decade. But something about being around Norm-Hooten-call-me-Hoot makes John feel like the bloody thing is right there on his chest for the world to see.

“You know how to handle one of these?”

It’s a perfectly reasonable question. The gun is a G36. It’s not an easy weapon for a beginner, and Hoot is holding his with a casual ease that has half the recruits green with envy. But there’s something about the way Hoot drawls out the question at him that makes John feel a bit crazy. He bites back his first angry response, and then he swallows down the second one, and then he thinks better of the third.

Instead, he picks up the gun. He’s not quite stupid enough to fire the thing without looking it over first, but he keeps his inspection quick, then snaps the weapon up into textbook-perfect position.

The last harsh bark of gunfire fades into echos and then into the silence as the other new recruits stare at the targets. There’s a neat cluster a bullet holes in the heart and head of all dozen dummies. As they watch, one of them lists sideways and falls ever-so-slowly to the ground. _Thump_.

Hoot whistles, low and impressed. “Damn. That’s twelve for the grim reaper, y’all.”

John grins despite himself.

And it was, as they say, the beginning of a beautiful friendship for Reaper and Hoot.

* * *

“ _Why_?” was all Sam could say, sounding helplessly near to tears, when John had gone to say goodbye to her, his uniform so new it still smelled like the plastic bag it came in.

John hadn’t how to explain. Because... were there even words? All he knew was, science wasn’t good enough any more. It wasn’t enough to say, this protein string might one day lead to a treatment to save the life of some unknown person, light years away. He wanted a gun in his hands. He wanted to do something _here_ , and _now_. Save the lives right there beside you, the people you care about, not some stranger somewhere in the distance.

“Wanted to make a difference,” he’d said at last, knowing his answer to be completely inadequate.

Sam had looked anguished. “You can make a difference _here_ , with us! You can save lives without having to risk your own life!”

John had said nothing.

“And what about - what about - ” Sam had hesitated, until John laughed, one short, sharp bark.

“You’re allowed to be gay in the army these days,” he’d said, dryly.

“ _Allowed_ , sure, but not - I mean, it’s - it’s not a good place for people like you.”

 _People like me?_ All John was able to do was shrug. So, he crushed on boys and not girls. What did it matter? Sam should have know as well as him that loving people didn’t keep them alive.

It was two decades before he saw her again.

* * *

“Why?” Reaper feels compelled to ask, as they lounge in the shade of the barracks one day.

“You gotta be more specific then that,” says Hoot dryly.

“Why’re you here,” he says.

Hoot snorts. “Aw, hell, Reap’, you know why.”

And Reaper does. “Same reason I’m here,” he says, settling back against the cool ridges of the aluminum siding.

“Same reason you’re here,” Hoot confirms, lips quirked in a lopsided grin.

* * *

Reaper-and-Hoot. That’s how people say it. The Drill Sergeants bellow “Grimm!” and “Hooten!” and “You two shit-faced little bastards, wipe those smug grins off your faces!”, but every other soul on the base knows how it really goes: Reaper-and-Hoot, all in one breath. Reaper-and-Hoot, those arrogant bastards, but damn if every recruit in the place didn’t want to _be_ them. Because Reaper-and-Hoot were the best of the best, and the whole base knew it, from the officers right on down to the cooks.

Reaper catches himself starting to think that way. Not, hey, I’ve got some leave next week, what’ll I do with it? Instead, hey, we’ve got some leave next week. Me’n-Hoot oughta do something.

“Oh, me’n-Reap are thinking of heading in to town for leave,” Hoot tells someone one day, all casual-like, and a comfortable warmth settles into Reaper’s belly. Boot camp is hell, but hell’s not so bad with a friend by your side.

And then boot camp is over, faster than Reaper could ever have imagined, and Reaper-and-Hoot are standing there staring at each other, assignment papers in hand.

“Delta Force,” says Hoot, subdued. “A hell of a lot more training in my future, I guess. I don’t reckon that you...?”

Reaper feels like his stomach is somewhere around his knees. The comfortable warmth he’s grown so used to has become a ball of ice. “RRTS,” he replies.

“Well, fuck,” Hoot says, after a moment of silence.

* * *

Reaper shuffles through the mess-hall line, eyes half closed and every part of him aching with bone-deep exhaustion. And here he’d thought life was supposed to get _easier_ once you left boot camp. He hadn’t expected to be hauled out of bed at half-past-stupid in the morning for an unscheduled training exercise.

“You’re RRTS now, boy!” the officer - Reaper had been too bleary to make more specific note of his stripes - had bellowed in Reaper’s face. “That means you respond _rapidly_! So haul ass or you’ll be on KP for a month!”

At least he’d managed to keep more-or-less vertical for the duration of the exercise, which was more than he could say for some of the guys.

Ahead of him in line, a kid with sandy blond hair has been standing in front of the desserts for almost five minutes, the weary line of trainees parting to flow seamlessly around him. He’s swaying gently from side to side, half-drunk on sleeplessness, and has an expression on his freckle-covered face like deciding between chocolate cake and apple pie is the most difficult thing he’s ever had to do. He looks, point of fact, like he’s going to burst into tears if he can’t make up his mind in the next thirty seconds.

Reaper grins. Maybe it’s just his own lack-of-sleep, but something about that kid is the funniest thing he thinks he’s seen in a dog’s age. He he reaches out to nudge Hoot, a smart-ass quip already on his lips and -

\- Hoot isn’t there. Right.

Well, fuck.

* * *

It’s been a week. Reaper’s not Reaper-and- _anyone_ here, and he sure as hot hell ain’t feeling sorry for himself. No, sir, he is not. He’s just sitting alone in his rack when everyone else is in the mess because he’s got some thinking to do. Good way to spend your time, thinking.

When the door swings open, Reaper blinks twice, baffled. Dreaming? No, he can still smell the creamed spinach wafting up from the mess; he doesn’t think he could dream up anything quite so vile as all that. His mouth opens his mouth and then closes it again, wordless.

“I applied for a transfer,” says Hoot, all casual-like, dropping his duffel bag down on the unclaimed bed. Reaper’d been wondering when he was going to get a rack-mate.

“ _How_?” is all Reaper can manage. Soldiers as green as them don’t get granted transfers. Soldiers as green as them aren’t even allowed to _apply_ for transfers.

“I’m still Delta Force,” say Hoot, eyes gleaming. “I’m just... doing things a little different, now. I can be mighty persuasive when I set my mind to it.” And Reaper doesn’t give a damn who Hoot had to bribe or blackmail or beat up because fuck, he’s _here_ , and before Reaper knows what he’s doing he’s halfway across the room with a double fistful of Hoot’s crisp uniform and they’re kissing like it’s their last chance to touch each other before the end of the world.

As first kisses go, Reaper’s has more polished ones - ones where he didn’t bang his nose off the other guy’s cheek hard enough to make his eyes water, or bite his own lip in his haste, or somehow wind up with a not-so-sexy splatter of saliva on his cheek - but in that moment he can truthfully say he’s never had a _better_ first kiss.

Hoot pulls back, panting slightly, eyes still full of that impish glee, and he mutters, “‘Bout damn time, Reaper,” then leans back in. And this kiss is slower, and deeper, both of them savouring it now, and Reaper can honestly say of this kiss, the second kiss, that he’s never had a better kiss in his whole damn life.

* * *

Reaper had his first boyfriend was when he was seven years old. They held hands and shared double-chocolate cookies with big glasses of milk in the UAC cafeteria, and their mothers, trading indulgent smiles, organised play dates and movie nights. If they’d been girls, Reaper figures they’d have written each other stupid little notes that said “do you like me, yes or no, please circle one,” or something.

The other boy’s parents left the base when their contract ended, and they took their kid with them. Reaper doesn’t remember his name any more. But you know, he reckons that’s okay. It was such a little-kid love, as innocent as they come. It would ruin it, somehow, if he found out who the other boy had grown up to be.

Hoot’s nothing like that long-ago kid; dark-haired and lanky where the boy was round-faced and blond. And there’s sure as hell nothing innocent in what Reaper-and-Hoot do in the privacy of their rack at night. But when Hoot smiles at him across the table in the mess, Reaper tastes chocolate on his tongue.

* * *

“Ma says you oughta join us for Christmas dinner,” says Hoot. They’re curled up in Reaper’s bed, twined together in a dog-pile tangle, Hoot’s legs dangling off the edge. They barely fit. “I’d take her up on it, if I were you. She makes a mean sweet potato pie.”

Reaper stares up at the ceiling. “You tell her I didn’t have anywhere to go?”

Reaper’s parents are one of those things he and Hoot don’t really talk about. Hoot knows, of course, although Reaper can’t remember if he ever actually told him about it or if Hoot just found out through the rumour mill. They also don’t talk about Hoot’s brother Jackson and the bridge Jackson walked off one grief-stricken, booze-soaked night, or Marie, the cousin who fell in bad folks and who the cops pulled out of the ditch with a tidy bullet hole in the back of her skull. _Same reason you’re here_ , says Hoot’s voice in his memory. People die, and they both know it. There’s nothing there to talk about.

Which doesn’t means he’s exactly comfortable with the idea of Hoot telling his Ma about poor little John Grimm, the orphan with nowhere to go home to.

Hoot snorts, and the derisive sound drives the tension out of Reaper like no eloquent reassurances ever could. He closes his eyes, turns his face into Hoot’s neck. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “Had to ask.”

He feels Hoot shrug beneath him. “I wrote one too many stories home, is all. She says anyone who makes it into so many of my letters is someone she oughta to meet.” He must have stiffened up again, because Hoot chuckles softly into his ear. “I can introduce you as my rack mate, if you’d rather.”

“No,” says Reaper, after a moment, surprising himself a bit. “Let’s do this right the first time.”

* * *

Sam’s been writing him letters. Reaper’s been ripping them up, unopened.

Hoot’s been watching, wordless.

* * *

Sometimes Reaper imagines a little yellow house, with crappy gardens because he’s got the opposite of a green thumb, and a too-big lawn to mow and a kitchen full of sunshine where they can cook each other breakfast in bed. And then he tries to picture him’n-Hoot lounging on the porch in their grubby fatigues, the neighbourhood soccer moms staring on in horror, and he has to grin. Naw, it’s just not _them_.

It’s the kind of house Sam would have wanted him to have.

But it’s the third day of slogging through mud half up to their necks during the devil’s own training exercise, and he’s tired and cold and cranky and in a moment of punch-drunk giddiness he finds himself outlining the whole vision to Hoot, his hands darting as they sketch out dining nooks and a white picket fence. And Hoot can’t stop laughing, clinging weakly to Reaper’s shoulders to keep from going ass of teakettle into the mud again, and Reaper’s grinning like a loon through his weariness.

Hoot shakes him awake the next morning, looking too goddamn chipper for a man Reaper knows for a fact has only has six hours of sleep in the last three days. “Rise and shine, sweetheart,” he says, fluttering his eyelashes as Reaper pulls himself upright. “I made you breakfast in bed.”

And he holds out a hot MRI.

Reaper snorts, and takes it. Christ, he’s hungry - and then something catches his eye, and he pauses, a forkful of food poised in the air. There’s a tidy row of sticks jutting up from the mud beside him. “Oh, God,” he says, as comprehension dawns. “A picket fence?”

Hoot grins, perfectly smug. “You bet your ass, darling.”

“Aw, you’re too good to me, cupcake,” Reaper retorts, beginning to shovel the MRI into his mouth. He hardly tastes it - it’s hot and filling, that’s the key thing.

“It was nothing, honey-bun.”

“Boo-bear.”

“Fluffykins.”

“Oh, you’re going _down_.”

* * *

Permanent team assignments are out and it seems like it’s all anyone can talk about, dozens of wide-eyed rookies comparing their little slips of papers, commiserating and congratulating and occasionally mocking the unfortunate.

Reaper and Hoot are on different teams.

But it’s okay. Really, it is. They’re expecting it, this time. And they’ve grown up a little more now, enough to know that Reaper-and-Hoot would be no good for a team, no good at all, all wrapped up in each other like that. Besides. What they have between them is... solid, now. Not some nebulous future, but something certain and reliable. It doesn’t matter where they’re sent. Reaper-and-Hoot will be just as much Reaper-and-Hoot with an ocean between them as when they lie together in their rack, skin-to-skin.

Which doesn’t mean that it doesn’t suck, of course. But the other guys do them the favour of pretending not to notice when Reaper and Hoot quietly withdraw, when they go back to their rack, hand-in-hand, to be skin-to-skin Reaper-and-Hoot one last time. They fuck all day, sometimes slow and leisurely, sometimes fast and frantic, sometimes not really fucking at all, neither of them even hard, couldn’t get hard again if they wanted to, but just touching, and touching, and touching, and then they hold each other close all night, each saying goodbye to every inch of the other.

And that’s not nothing. That’s not nothing at all.

* * *

Reaper’s not loving the transition from golden boy to the goddamn rookie always slowing down the real soldiers, but he grits his teeth and sticks with it. He’s going to earn their respect if it kills him. This is where he wants to be - where he needs to be.

He’s just starting to get his feet under him when his first real mission plunges him straight down into hell.

There’s a warlord, and his stronghold, and the thing about being RRTS is that they don’t tell you much: just go go go, achieve the objective and get the hell out because there’s no _time_ for detailed briefings, that’s why we called in the fucking RRTS, moron.

And what the not-so-detailed briefings leave out is that it’s full of families, and there are kids in there, scrawny little creatures with dirty faces and matted hair and wide terrified eyes, and when he bursts into the room one of them swings around and Reaper thinks, fuck, he’s holding a gun -

\- and then the kid is on the floor with a bundle of kindling scattered around him and blood soaking through his too-large shirt and Reaper’s world narrows down to that splash of red, the only colour in a world suddenly gone to shades of grey.

As the team is retreating, Sarge finds him kneeling on the floor in a kind of a shock, trying to bind up the wound of a corpse while wild-eyed children cower in the corners of the room. Reaper can hear his curses, sort of, but they seem unreal, somehow of a different world than the warm blood on his hands, the rough wood beneath his knees. And then Goat has one arm, and Sarge has his other, and they’re hauling him away.

They toss him into the chopper and his head slams against the floor. The sharp crack brings him back to himself, awareness and shame flooding in through the gap pain had opened.

The ride back is hell in it’s own kind of way. Portman is leering at him and Goat is quietly disdainful, but it’s the pitying glances his fellow rookie Duke keeps shooting him that are the worst. He can’t even bring himself to _look_ at Sarge, a solid presence beside him on the bench.

It takes about an hour for the tension to slowly dissipate, for murmured conversation to give way to laughter and joking and the more normal post-mission buzz, but it might as well be a year as far as Reaper’s concerned. Only then, when the rest of the team are chattering away, does Sarge say, “You alright, kid?”

He tries to talk, and his voice comes out as a croak. Sarge hands him a canteen, wordless, and Reaper takes a deep swing before trying again. “Did we achieve the objective?” he asks.

Sarge doesn’t smile, but he looks like he’s hearing something he likes. “Yeah, we did.”

Reaper takes a deep breath. “Then I’m alright. Sarge, I don’t - I swear, I’ll never - ”

“You froze up,” Sarge interrupts. “It happens to the best of us. You won’t do it again. And, Reaper,” he says, almost kindly, “If you _do_ do it again? I’ll kick your motherfucking ass.”

* * *

Reaper doesn’t do it again.

* * *

When Reaper sees Hoot next, Hoot’s team is on Reaper’s new base for 24 hours, a rest stop on their way to a new training site.

Hoot’s changed. He’s thinner now, which Reaper hadn’t reckoned was possible, and his cheekbones are sharp in a narrowed face. Reaper pauses for a moment, listens to him casually rip into the green-as-grass solider in line beside him. His sarcasm has been honed to a bitter edge; his banter has none of its old lightness.

“You’ve changed,” is the first thing Hoot says to him.

Reaper’s lips twitch into a weary smile. “Me too, huh? Good change or bad change?”

Hoot studies him thoughtfully. “Dunno. You’re... quieter, I guess. I’d say you got grimmer, but I’ve sworn off puns. I think you put on weight.”

Reaper snorts. “That’s _muscle_ , asshole. At I least _I_ didn’t turn into a beanpole. What, your squad doesn’t feed you?”

“Caviar for every meal, I swear it on my Momma’s grave.”

“Your Ma ain’t dead, Hoot,” Reaper says dryly.

Hoot shrugs. “ _Your_ Momma’s grave, then.”

Reaper grows still. Lets the hurt and the anger rise up, gives himself a few seconds to imagine taking a swing as Hoot’s blasé face, and then lets it go all in a rush, the air whooshing out of his lungs. “I share a rack these days. We should go back to your room,” he says.

Hoot’s shoulders slump, and there’s something of despair in the curve of his spine. “Fuck. Yeah, a’right.”

* * *

They don’t talk about it, not that night or any other. They don’t have to.

They just wake each other up from the nightmares, and hold each other tight until the shaking subsides.

* * *

It doesn’t get better, but it does get easier. Hoot acquires a ruthless practical streak and a hobby of insubordination to match Reaper’s rep for being slightly too emotional but still the kind of solider you can count on to carry out difficult orders without hesitation. Somehow, that works out just fine. They’re puzzle pieces, Reaper going one way and Hoot going the other and somehow they fit together perfectly, Reaper-and-Hoot, same as before.

At the end of the day, Reaper’s got no regrets. You fire that gun, and sure, maybe in the grand scheme of things you’re saving the life of some stranger a thousand miles away. But here and now, you’re saving the life of the guy beside you; and tomorrow, he’ll save yours. Reaper fits into this world like - like - well, fuck, he was never much good at metaphors and he’s already used the “puzzle piece” one. He fits like it’s the place where he fits, and that’s the long and the short of it.

* * *

“God in heaven,” says Duke fervently. “ _Pizza_.”

Goat gives soft growl of disapproval. “Blasphemy.”

“I reckon that was an actual prayer,” says Reaper, dryly, as he helps himself to a slice. “Oh, G - good grief, that’s good,” he adds through a mouthful of melted cheese and spicy sausage.

Destroyer, the team’s current rookie and apparently a good friend of Duke’s from back home, is making some positively orgasmic noises as he devours his slice. But in the guy’s defense, they’ve been living off tightly-rationed MREs for three weeks now. ‘Mission gone wrong’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. Reaper has sand in places he doesn’t care to think about, he could count on one hand the hours of sleep he’s had in the past five days, and he’s reasonably certain he’d be willing to stab a puppy if it could get him to Hoot - but God, it’s amazing how much brighter the world looks with pizza in your belly.

“How the hell, Sarge?” he asks, grabbing a second slice. There were times he’d been convinced they were going to have to walk all the way out of that fucking desert. Miracle enough to have got them a chopper at all - but when the copilot had pulled those greasy cardboard boxes out from the locker...

“You make yourselves sick eating too fast, you clean up your own damn vomit,” Sarge says, by way of an answer. “I got my ways, kid.”

* * *

“Got a girl back home?” Duke asks one day, as they lounge around the team’s rack space. Reaper’s cleaning his gun, trying to work out the mud from yesterday’s successful but annoyingly _damp_ mission.

“Naw,” says Reaper, not really thinking about it. “Not me.”

Portman’s voice carries the sound of a leer when it comes from behind Reaper: “What, you a fag or something?”

Reaper’s hands falter, but only for a fraction of a second. He’s been ready for this. Without looking up, he snorts derisively. “What a fucking stupid question.”

Portman laughs, and it’s not a nice sound. “Really? ‘Cause I reckon you’re _look_ like a - ”

“‘Course I’m a fag,” he interrupts. “Christ, some special ops solider you are. Took you a fucking year to catch on.”

Portman’s mouth is opening and closing, but no words are coming out.

“And before you ask,” Reaper adds, his attention still pointedly on his gun and the cleaning rag, “I fuck _men_ , not rats. So, no. Not for all the money in the world.”

Duke’s howling with laughter, Destroyer has that look that says he’d be rolling on the floor if he weren’t so fucking badass; even Sarge can’t seem to help but chuckle. When Reaper finally looks up, he sees that Goat’s got a sour look on his face, but Reaper reckoned that was inevitable. It’ll be fine. _Everyone_ is a hell-bound sinner, in Goat’s eyes.

He holds on to the gobsmacked look on Portman’s face for years to come. The memory of it helps keep him from shooting the bastard.

* * *

The letters from Sam dwindle to a yearly birthday card. Reaper stares at each one for hours, then throws out the envelopes, still unopened.

* * *

“Fuck,” Reaper gasps. He’s vaguely surprised to find he has enough higher brain function left to say even that much.

“Maybe in a few minutes,” Hoot manages. “Chrissakes, we’re not eighteen anymore, you gotta give me a _little_ more recovery time then that...”

It’s the first time they’ve been skin-to-skin for almost a year, and it’s not exactly the reunion Reaper’d imagined. He’d planned to drop to his knees at Hoot’s feet, slide his pants down teasingly slow, take his time with soft huffs of air and the tip of his tongue until Hoot started to beg, and then -

Then he’d opened the door and Hoot had grabbed him by the collar and they’d collapsed to the bed in a frenzy of frantic kisses and pawing, only to come all over each other like a couple of teenager, barely five minutes later, both still half dressed.

“Not very suave,” says Reaper, starting to get his breath back. There’s a new scar on Hoot’s thigh, still the bright pink of newly healed flesh, and he’s trying to resist the urge to reach out and run his fingers across it. Hoot trusts his team to bring him home safe again, so Reaper trusts them too. Doesn’t make the scars any easier to bear. “Thought you were supposed to be the smooth operator here, Hoot.”

“Dunno,” mumbles Hoot, “it felt pretty sexy from over here. Like to see you do any better.”

Grinning, Reaper roles over and meets Hoot’s eyes. “Is that a challenge?”

“Fuck yeah.”

He dances his fingers over Hoot’s chest, pausing to roll a nipple between his fingers. “Say please,” he suggests. He can feel Hoot’s erection beginning to press up against his belly. So much for ‘maybe in a few minutes’.

“Fuck it, you bastard, _please_ ,” Hoot grinds out.

Reaper grins again, shimmying downward. And if his hands linger over the puckered pink scar, Hoot says nothing. “Let me show you how _I’d_ planned for the evening to start...”

* * *

Reaper stares after Sarge's back as his commanding officer leaves the room, then turns, slowly, and picks up the nearest phone. He dials the hotel room, and Hoot answers on the third ring.

“If you’re calling to tell me your transport’s been delayed again, so help me God, Reap-”

“Leave’s cancelled,” Reaper interrupts.

Hoot’s silence speaks worlds. “Well, fuck,” he says at last, resigned. “Mission?”

“Yeah.” Reaper stares into the middle distance for a moment, then adds, “But Sarge says I can stay behind, if I want.”

Hoot makes a disbelieving noise into the phone. “What the hell? Since when’s _that_ an option?”

“Mission’s to Olduvai.”

There’s silence from the other end of the line. “Shit,” says Hoot after a moment. “Sam?”

“Haven't heard.”

“Damn.” There’s some faint shuffling noises, then the creaking of bed-springs. “He _order_ you off the mission?”

“Recommended it,” says Reaper. He can hear a chopper, and it takes him a half second to realise it’s on his side of the line, not Hoot’s. Five minutes, ten max, and his team’ll take off without him. “Recommended it _strongly_.”

“And?”

Reaper sighs. “I haven't seem you for six months, Hoot. And... _Olduvai_.”

“So, what, you want me to tell you what you oughta do?”

Reaper doesn’t say anything, but he figures his sheepish silence kind of speaks for itself.

He can practically hear Hoot’s rueful grin. “Aw, hell, Reap’, you and me both know what you have to do.”

Reaper exhales.

* * *

“So, Reaper?” Sam says. “As in Grimm?”

Reaper clenches his jaw. Being back in Olduvai has him on edge enough without having to deal with this kind of bullshit too. “He - they’re marines, Sam,” he manages to say in what he thinks is a fairly level tone of voice, “not poets.” He earned that name, god-dammit. What gives her the right...?

“He?” Sam asks, because she’s many things, but she’s not stupid.

Reaper doesn’t say anything.

“You could have told me,” she says, and there’s something like affection underneath the exasperation.

“He’s not...” And Reaper doesn’t know how to explain. “It’s not like you think it is. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Maybe not,” snaps Sam. She can’t keep the hurt out of her voice. “Sometimes I think I never really did understand you, John, even when we were kids. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have tried been happy for you. What the hell d’you _think_ I’ve been trying to do, all these years?”

* * *

Hoot’s waiting there when Reaper walks out of the elevator, facing the other way and arguing at top volume with a harassed looking tech. Heads are turning all over the room, there are medics rushing towards them, but Hoot hasn’t noticed yet. Reaper can’t keep from making a desperate noise in the back of his throat. He doesn’t have a god-damned clue how Hoot got here, and he doesn’t care.

In his arms, Sam, barely conscious, stirs. She lolls her head, and then asks, weakly, “That him?”

“You need to rest,” says Reaper automatically. He’d pictured Hoot lounging in their hotel room all week, eating steak and pizza and watching crappy pay-per-view porn. He should have realised that wasn’t going to happen. Note once Hoot realised he was going to Olduvai.

“Idiot,” she murmers. Then, “...just wanted you to be happy. You know that, right?”

“I am,” he says, and to his surprise, in spite of everything, he realises he means it

“Good,” she says. “Now introduce us.” But her eyes are already closing.

“Not really the time, Sam,” he mutters, as the medics reach him and frantic hands tug at her, everyone babbling questions all at once. “But later. I promise.” He’s surprised to realise he means that, too.

Across the room, as the medics pry Sam out of Reaper’s arms, Hoot finally looks up. Meets Reaper’s eyes. Reaper is suddenly aware of how he must look - covered in blood, clutching his sister’s unconscious body. Like he’s been through hell and back.

Hoot shoots him an exasperated look, as if to say, _only you could make this kind of mess, Reaper_. But there’s sheer relief written across his face.

Reaper grins. Yeah. It’s good to be home.


End file.
